


Cervus Aeternum

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Drabbles, Fawnlock, Gen, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock returns from the Reichenbach Fall as Fawnlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cervus Aeternum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [khorazir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/khorazir/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Cervus Aeternum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1850299) by [de_maria_na](https://archiveofourown.org/users/de_maria_na/pseuds/de_maria_na)



> Many thanks to khorazir for the inspiring prompt and the [lovely art.](http://wiggleofjudas.tumblr.com/post/69201913008/khorazir-wiggleofjudas-wrote-this-beautiful) I am grateful to know you. <3
> 
> Written over the course of six days as part of a drabble a day for advent.

They stare at each other across the winter-dead field. 

Sherlock’s preternaturally still. Flight-ready. 

John walks closer. Crunches frost and grass underfoot. Closer. 

Their exhalations become clouds, become tangled. 

"John," Sherlock breathes, all whisper, "I am no longer—I’m not—" 

Wool gloves rest on Sherlock’s cheeks. John shakes his head. "You are," John says. "I know you, Sherlock." 

Sherlock swallows. His eyes are ice. "I never wanted you to see me like this." 

John’s hands feel heavy. He licks his lips. Lowers his arms. "Why’d you let me, then?" 

It’s there, in the lines of Sherlock’s flecked face: he knows. "I had no idea you would be so"—John buries his face in Sherlock’s ruff—" _John_." Tears slide down John’s cheeks, into Sherlock’s fur, as Sherlock enfolds John’s body in his arms. "I’m sorry. I owe you a thousand apologies." Sherlock’s chapped lips graze John’s forehead. 

John breathes. Sherlock smells like cold earth. Like perennials quick beneath snow. 

John exhales. Wipes wool over his eyes and stands tall. "A curse, then?" 

Sherlock’s antlers dip when he nods. " _Cervus æternum._ " 

"Christ." John’s lips press thin. "St. Mungo’s can’t help?" 

"They did." Bare feet, long toes restless, paw ground. "I looked no different to other deer, at first, and my mind was… I was in a very old wood, John. I was not myself. I spent two years evading capture, Mycroft says." 

Two years lost to the forest, a third to the mending. "And you’re here in the park because…?" 

Sherlock doesn’t smile. Not quite. "You walk here, don’t you?" 

"Yeah, I do." John crosses his arms. "Where—do you live here, now? In the park?" 

"No." Sherlock inhales. "Follow me." 

John—leg cramping, face branch-flicked, feet painfully cold—follows Sherlock to a front door. A wrought-iron fence. 

221B. 

John aims his wand (" _Alohomora_ ") and scrambles up the seventeen steps. The living room’s a mess, wild-smelling and cluttered, air thick with dust and fur. 

And still home. 

Sherlock’s steps are high, cautious: a deer’s, trying for silence near danger. 

John clears a chair. _His_ chair. Sits. "You weren’t going to tell me." 

Sherlock crouches in his own seat, prey-slow. "No." Sherlock hugs his knees to his chest and rocks from heels to toes and John, somehow, doesn’t hit him. 

"Why not?" 

"Didn’t need you." 

John frowns. "You followed me." 

"I was bored." 

"You were—?" John stands. Tightens his scarf. "Of course. I’ll let myself—" 

"John." Sherlock trembles; John recalls a bee Sherlock trapped in a glass against the bedroom window. "I thought you might not—the evidence was insufficient to—." Sherlock swallows. Sits, his feet flat on the floor. "If you’d seen, and—and left…" 

John’s legs fit, barely, between Sherlock’s and the armrests. Sherlock’s face fits perfectly in John’s hands. 

John rests his forehead against Sherlock’s, whose antlers curl from either side of his head as though to envelope him and John. To guard them against the rest of the world. 

"I’m moving back in," John says, low. 

"People will talk." Sherlock’s cold hands slip under John’s scarf, light on the back of John’s neck. 

John nuzzles the bridge of Sherlock’s nose. "They do little else." 

Breaths and pulses; blinks and flicks; curls and tufts: miracles in John’s arms. 

Sherlock grunts. "My feet are falling asleep." 

"Don’t care," John says, pressing, impossibly, closer. 

John feels—doesn’t see—Sherlock’s grin. "Neither do I."


End file.
